Metamorphic Ventures Closes Second Fund Just Shy of $70 Million

March 10, 2014

Metamorphic Ventures Closes Second Fund Just Shy of $70 Million

//David Hirsch//

At Metamorphic, we have always tried to practice one of my favorite Benjamin Franklin quotes, “Well done is better than well said.” For the last few years, we’ve been a little under the radar, quietly hammering away at the big themes on the web and partnering with talented entrepreneurs to best help with all stages of their life cycles; from raising strategic syndicates, to hiring, to product, to business development and sales. As a firm, we’ve spent our time helping entrepreneurs and haven’t prioritized marketing enough ourselves, but today we’re letting the horses out of the stable a bit.

With the new infusion of capital Metamorphic Ventures will continue to invest in seed stage companies, but also will look to find our portfolio companies’ next round, as well as in select new companies after the seed round. We believe there is a very big gap in the market after the seed round and before the company raises a much larger round. Our thesis is to invest in companies at the intersection of digital media and commerce; incorporating payments, marketplaces, adtech, software infrastructure, and other internet-enabled businesses.

We have divided the world into the four quadrants we believe will best help startups: platforms, media companies, commerce companies and brands, and payments companies. We have investors from most major web platforms, top brands and strategic private equity executives who touch these categories, which is extremely helpful to our portfolio companies as they tap into expertise in business development, sales, product, engineering and hiring. Strategically for MV, this helps us spot trends, markets and opportunities that are bubbling up.

We are proud to announce that Metamorphic Ventures has closed our second fund, coming in just shy of $70 million. As part of our second fund we have added some of the most talented and accomplished individuals in their respective industries to our advisory board, joining our other amazing advisors. These people include:

Gokul Rajaram: Head of Product and Engineering at Square, former Head of Ad Product at Facebook, and “the Godfather of Adsense” at Google,

Mindy Grossman: CEO at HSN,

John McAteer: VP of Sales at Google who runs the entire retail vertical,

Rob Master: Vice President of Media at Unilever,

Jared Grusd: Head of Corporate Development and General Counsel at Spotify,

David Sable: CEO of Y&R,

Ran Harnevo: President of Video at AOL,

Jim McCann: Founder and CEO of 1-800 Flowers,

Brian Lee: CEO of the Honest Company and Founder of Shoedazzle and LegalZoom

Peter Sachse: Chief Stores Officer at Macy’s

Robby Stein: Director of Product Management at Yahoo!

Mario Shiliashki, SVP and Group Head, US Emerging Payments at MasterCard

The infusion of this significant human capital is a huge asset, as Metamorphic Ventures’ secret weapon is our network of partners and LPs, who get extremely involved in our portfolio companies and curate the right mixture of relationships to add value and drive long-term business success.

GOOGLE VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES JOHN MCATEER LEADS A ROUNDTABLE ON THE FUTURE OF RETAIL

AOL ADVISOR, FORMER CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF THE INTERPUBLIC GROUP, AND FORMER GOOGLE ADVISOR MENTORS THE METAMORPHIC PORTFOLIO ON PITCHING TO AGENCIES

Marc, myself, and the rest of the MV team are thrilled to continue to invest in the best people and companies on the planet and help grow New York City’s role in the startup ecosystem. New York is the epicenter of a wide variety of major industries, including financial services, payments, media, publishing, retail, fashion, sports, education, healthcare, consumer packaged goods, and entertainment, to name a few.

We look solely for the best teams to solve big problems in huge categories and industries and are location agnostic, whether that be New York City (Sailthru), Austin (Mass Relevance), San Francisco (Indiegogo), Tel Aviv (RayV), Canada (Chango) or elsewhere. In short, being headquartered in New York allows us to best unlock distribution and monetization for our portfolio companies. The magic at Metamorphic Ventures often happens between meetings, as we invest the majority of our time leveraging our deep networks to add value to our portfolio companies, create new opportunities and give back to the ecosystem as much as we can. We invite our portfolio, partners, friends… really anyone with an interest in getting to know us… to come hang out, as our office is open and nontraditional.

While the way we raised capital was very strategic; we are now ready to get back to what we love doing and wake up excited to do every morning. This is to isolate the greatest entrepreneurs and help build companies that can change the world.

If you fit this mold or just want to say hi, please drop us a line or stop by our office.

WE BELIEVE YOU DON’T NEED TO BE AT YOUR DESK TO BE PRODUCTIVE. THIS IS ONE OF OUR “WHITEBOARD WORKOUT” SESSIONS WITH ME, ELIAS ROMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO OF SONGZA, AND ELDAN KER, FITNESS SPECIALIST AND ENTREPRENEUR